More Loftin trial balloons floated

The Eagle reports:

"Get two or more faculty together, and they're going to talk about the administration," said Slack, who admittedly has done a lot of the complaining in the past. "But the general feeling was people were positive about [Texas A&M Interim President R. Bowen] Loftin."

He continued: "He's taken a big bathtub splashing back and forth and just calmed it. He had the right personality and demeanor to keep the [A&M] System officials from the necks of the faculty and the faculty from the necks of the System officials."

Some at the CPI might disagree with the part about keeping System officials from the necks of the faculty. However, Vision 1920's faculty contacts have nothing but praise for President Loftin. The most common refrain: it could be a lot worse.

That's the standard around here these days.

Will Loftin lose the interim tag?

The Eagle updates the search news:

Texas A&M Interim President R. Bowen Loftin appears to be one of about four candidates still in the running for the university's presidency.

"As far as I can tell, I am still being considered," Loftin said during an interview in his office Thursday. "I can't tell you anything more than that."

The advisory committee is expected to forward three or four names to the Board of Regents, the Texas A&M System's nine-member governing authority, at the regents meeting scheduled for Jan. 22, Box said.

Aggies won't know who the new president is until regents decide on a sole finalist. The search is in an "opaque" period in which secrecy is key to protecting the reputations of the candidates, said Box, who also is a regent and a former campaign treasurer for Gov. Rick Perry.

Vision 1920 wonders whether we have ever been in a nonopaque period for this search. However, Regent Box's concern about the reputations of the candidates is valid. Who would want to risk being known as the kind of quisling who would be willing to work here, unless they were assured of the payoff of a contract?

Search an academic exercise?

The same piece in the Eagle updates the status of the Presidential search

Richard Box, chair of the search committee looking for Texas A&M's next president, said that the process is on schedule and he plans to forward three or four names to regents next month.

Box, who also is a regent, said there were now fewer than eight candidates but declined to give a more precise number, saying the number would fluctuate. The remaining candidates all are from academia, he said.

"We're in a period that I call the opaque period -- we can't be very transparent in what we do. Confidentiality is of major importance," said Box, who asked each member of his 16-person committee to sign an agreement stating they won't reveal candidate names.

Fluctuate is not the adjective Vision 1920 would normally associate with narrowing the field. But it covers the possibility of adding new candidates, given that the remaining ones don't include the nonacademics mentioned in earlier releases.

Vision 1920 points out to members of the search committee that they would not be violating a promise to not reveal candidate names by leaving information about their current positions in the comments.

Getting what you pay for

The Eagle describes how our Chancellor is trying to keep A&M cheap.

Texas A&M has been instructed to plan for how it would deal with no increase in tuition next year, Chancellor Mike McKinney said during a Board of Regents meeting Thursday.

McKinney wrote in a letter last month to Texas A&M Interim President R. Bowen Loftin and other leaders in the 11-university A&M System that any tuition increase recommendation should be between zero and 3.95 percent.

Vision 1920 expects that we will need to hire several new administrators to keep the tuition increase recommendations within these limits.

Phil Gramm knows how to say no without saying no

Former Senator Phil Gramm was a faculty member at Texas A&M before he got into elected to the House of Representatives. As a former faculty member at A&M, Gramm probably knows that it's a terrible job. But as a prominent possible choice, how do you make sure you don't get stuck with it? You can't actually say you don't want the job, especially when you've previously said it's your dream job.

Gramm had to face this dilemma in 2002, when he was being touted as a stealth candidate. The George W. Bush appointees stuck with Gates while the Perry appointees (plus Erle Nye) wanted Gramm. But Gramm made sure that he would lose support from the Ag constituency by voting against the 2002 Farm Bill.

Now, out of the Senate, with another search for an A&M president ongoing, how can Gramm make sure he's not asked to fill the job? Like this:

Gov. Rick Perry backed Phil Gramm's stealth 2002 candidacy for Texas A&M president, but the former U.S. senator isn't returning the favor in the governor's re-election bid.

The 67-year-old was one of more than 60 Aggies or those with ties to the university who pledged support earlier this month to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry's rival in the March Republican primary.

We can understand going after the Seahawks...

But forcing the Reed Rowdies off campus?

The MSC Bookstore has decided to enforce a rule that gives them exclusive merchandising rights to the entire campus. Now, there's nothing wrong with that, except that they haven't enforced it for anything or anyone else in the last five years (that the guys have heard of.) They are not allowing the Rowdies to sell their shirts this season inside the arena, and have said that they will fine them $100 for setting up anywhere else on Reed Arena property (i.e. outside entrances, parking lot, etc).

10 years ago

It's been 10 years since the Bonfire tragedy.

There has been much debate since then about whether or not to bring Bonfire back, and whether or not it can be done. Today we should focus on remembrance.